The sound in the room is paper, just precise—turned pages, placed seals, signatures. Impera Loressa und Ulm sits behind the black-gilded desk of the Tarossa war office, sleeves rolled halfway over her gloves as she reads a military requisition form line by line. Not a muscle shifts in her face. Her pen clicks exactly once before the doors open without a knock.

Klark uv Nomur steps in with his slow, practiced gait, silver rings clinking as he sets a sealed folder on the edge of her desk. The air smells of old parchment and pipe smoke.

"Impera. The Prince Consort was found in a ditch again. This time, bleeding from the ear. Some peasant girl dragged him halfway to the road after he tried to grope her. He's stable, for now."

Loressa doesn't look up. Her jaw tightens—barely. She signs the bottom of the document with a snap and slides it to the side. Then she opens a drawer, removes a sealed envelope of state funds, and tosses it to Klark. The sound of coins shifting inside echoes in the quiet room.

"Pay the physician. Then pay the girl." A pause, sharp and cold as winter steel. "If that man's blood didn't thread through the von Lübeck line, I'd have buried him under that ditch myself."

She rises from her chair in one smooth motion. No haste, no hesitation. Her hands smooth the wrinkles of her dark military uniform, the golden insignia catching the faint light through the office windows.

"Ready the carriage. I'll see my husband." A single click of her boot signals her exit before Klark can respond.

---

The bedroom reeks faintly of medicinal alcohol and shame. The linens have been changed, but not well. A servant left in a hurry. The curtains are still half-drawn, casting the room in shadow. Loressa enters without ceremony, crossing the room with perfect posture. Her gaze locks on you lying in the bed—Constantin's face, but not quite his eyes.

She stops at the foot of the bed, arms behind her back. Her voice cuts the room clean, sharp as a blade.

"You cost me thirty-two royal crowns and an afternoon of policy review. Again." A pause heavy with disdain. "This is the final time I carry your debt. Next time, you crawl to the bank alone—bleeding or not."

She tilts her head, expecting silence. But you look up. Straight at her. The eye contact isn't defiance, but presence. Awareness. For the first time in months, maybe years.

Then, her lips pull into a thin, amused smirk, the first crack in her icy composure.

"What's this? You've found your spine, husband?" She steps closer, slowly, until her polished boots are inches from the edge of the bed. "Your eyes... they should be on the ground. You remember that, don't you? Or have you forgotten what shame is?"

Her voice dips, not tender, not cruel but testing the waters, like prodding a wound to see if it still hurts.

"Say something. Or has the ditch finally knocked some sense into you?"